


Miss Dark Acdemia and the Pastel Lesbian Princess

by alldatwrite



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 90'S, Bisexual, Bubblegum, College AU, Dark Academia, F/F, Lesbian, Mid-20's, Stripper AU, They share clothes, Trans Character, a little bit angsty, black girlfriend and pink girlfriend, classmates to lovers, idk man just saphics, lots of internal monologues ans shit like that, pastel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26917804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alldatwrite/pseuds/alldatwrite
Summary: She was a mystery. She was beautiful, and smart, and funny, and hardworking. She was the only thing I could think of. She was the queen of my dreams. And I just wanted her to notice me, to look at me, to smile at me. I wanted to know all about her. I guess you could say I fell in love with a stranger. All I knew about her was that she was a single mother, a survivor... and that her name was Regina.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... I wrote some lesbian shit based on a non canon pairing form a horrible show. What can I say...  
> Anyways, this is College Au, and also, Stripper Au, and it will have lots of internal monologues about what being a lesbian is, about death and misery, about love, about money and anout many other things. Fuck it, I just want them to live the complitation of ALL of my favourite clichés.   
> Whatever, enjoy the show.

The year is 1997. September, with its falling leaves and its remains of the summer, welcomed the new students. Some were veterans, some were fresh out of high school, some had been there for ages. For whatever reason, that old building on Maine felt cold and gloomy, probably because of the weather or the architecture of it. However, she sensed something else, without a name or a definition, when she entered the huge, dark building where she was supposed to study. A girl from New York, taken out of Manhattan and dropped in the middle of a village whose style was a mix of the medieval ages and the corniest 80’s; maybe she should have gone to Harvard, like Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde.

But she was in Misthaven, the best University in the whole country, located in a town called Storybrooke.

It took her some time to find her classroom, which was an enormous room with eco and old-style desks. By the time she arrived there, the course had already started, and all she could do was nod and sit on the back part, practically alone. Except for a girl sitting next to her.

A girl with dark hair, a black turtleneck, thin framed glasses, and a short black and light brown plaid skirt. She looked like a mix between a boarding schoolgirl and a nerdy girl. It was fascinating how she looked in that exact moment, and she wished she could capture her image. She had no idea who that girl was, but she knew she had fallen in love with her.

She was distracted when she heard the professor call her own name out loud.

“Mary Margaret Blanchard”, she said out loud. That’s when the brunette paid attention to her teacher. The girl next to her right looked at her. She couldn’t see it that well, because she was facing the woman, but that unknown girl was looking at her. _Staring_ at her.

“I’d rather be called just Margaret”, she answered, standing up and speaking up, nervously though.

“Fine, I’ll call you Margaret. As you missed your classmates’ introductions, I would like you to tell us a little bit about yourself, so everyone can get to know you”. She looked around, at her classmates, wondering what she was doing there: with a pink top and a blue plated skirt, butterfly clips in her hair and shiny lip gloss on her lips. She felt out of place and regretted instantly her decision to move to that campus.

“Well… my name is Margaret, and I’m from New York. I’m 21 years old and… I like photography and… reading”. She was nervous, she was suffocating. She hated crowds and being the center of attention. And she knew _that_ girl was staring at her, observing her every move.

She sat and listened to that woman talk about how the subject would be like, how they would have to work; but her attention was focused on her drawing. She was drawing a girl, mindlessly, as she thought of how wrong she was about anything. And now, she couldn’t go to her daddy and ask him to pay for another school. She had no one and not much money, and she was stuck in a degree she wasn’t sure she wanted to graduate from. Four years of Mathematics and two years of French. She had always wanted to be a mathematician and choosing French as her minor was a nostalgic decision, but she was feeling sorry about it. She should had married some young, rich businessman.

When the class ended, everyone rushed to other classrooms. “You shouldn’t draw people without their consent”, the girl next to her said. In two hours, she had drawn a quite realistic portrait of that unknown girl. She looked at that girl, whose name she didn’t know, and shivered. She looked angry. So, she ripped the page form her notebook and gave it to her.

“I’m so sorry…”, she kept repeating as she gathered her things in a rush and left. She felt like a predator, like a rapist, like a monster. She always felt that way around girls, probably because of her upbringing. Such strict and religious parents, she was messed up from the beginning.

However, that unknown girl kept the drawing in her folder.

She moved to another classroom, meeting there her flat mate. She managed to live in a small apartment, but she had to share it with two other girls. But they were nice, so she didn’t mind that much.

“Hey, Gina, here!”, the blonde said. Well, maybe they were a bit loud, but they were nice too. That blonde one was Emma Swan, the loudest flat mate. They shared a few courses. In that moment, they were about to start Criminal Law, her favorite. She wanted to be a Criminal lawyer someday, to go against certain people, such as… well, criminals. Whatever.

“Me?”, she asked. A blonde professor called Mallory Page was asking her about something she hadn’t heard because of her own thoughts.

“Yes, miss Mills. Could you please ask your opinion about it?”. She understood the question, but she had no idea what to answer. “Uhm… I think I would choose, on this case, to represent the victim instead of the aggressor. I could live with defending a liar, but I couldn’t live knowing I helped a rapist”. Her answer was clear and loud, her voice didn’t tremble, and she thought she had made herself clear. She was happy with herself. Now, she could keep on thinking about the bubblegum princess that had seated next to her.

“You look a bit absent, ladyboss. What’s the matter?”, Emma asked. They were supposed to keep quiet and listen to the lecture, but she couldn’t.

“I just met the weirdest girl in the fucking world. She dresses like Bubbles and drew me. It was impossible to focus on the lecture, she kept staring!”, she answered. It was kinda frustrating, because she had spent two hours drawing a perfect portrait of her.

“Wow, Regina, sounds like you have an admirer. Is she cute?”, Emma asked as Regina was taking notes of what was written in the big blackboard.

“A little bit. But she’s not my style at all. Too much pastel for me. Sounds like the type of person who bathes her cupcakes on sugar”, she said, and the blonde laughed. As quiet as Regina was and as much as she had a resting bitch face, she was funny and nice. She had met her for a little bit more of a month, but she liked her. She liked to think that the brunette liked her too.

She finished all her courses at 8 p.m. and went home. She had to work that night, albeit reluctantly, and couldn’t waste much more time. She set foot on the apartment and the first thing she did was to hug her son. She dismissed Ashley, Henry’s nanny, and made dinner for both. Although he was just seven, he was the smartest kid she had ever met, and he had supported her when she decided to go to college and get a degree. She loved him more than anything, and she wouldn’t have gotten so far if it wasn’t for his support.

“How was school?”, he asked, with a smile, as he ate his veggies.

“It was great. I learned a lot. How was your first day of school?”, she asked in return. The kid rambled about his new teachers and how difficult it all seemed, and by 9 p.m., he was tucked in bed and asleep. He could shower the next morning, as it was Friday. Friday, the worst day for her at work. She was going to make so much money… but she was tired of it. She wanted to quit, but Henry’s doctor appointments had to be paid, and she was not rich.

She got ready for the long night ahead of her, picking up her car, the only thing she owned, and hitting the road. She wished she had died that night.

On the other side of the town, two girls were sitting on a car. One of them was smoking a cigarette, and the other was choosing the best pop album for their ride to Portland. An hour they would spend just to go where Ruby wanted to take her. God, she hated Ruby. Ever since she came out of the closet, all her best friend did was taking her to gay bars and such. She was obsessed with getting Margaret a girlfriend. If only she knew…

“Alright, let’s party!”, she said, and Margaret turned up the volume. She hoped that this new bar was at least chic. To her surprise, when they arrived, she realized it wasn’t a gay bar. It was a strip bar.

“Where the hell have you brought me, Ruby?!”, she asked, alarmed. She was starting to feel sick. Dear lord, she was at a strip bar!

“Well, since you can’t get yourself a girl, you are going to at least see a girl. C’mon, it’s not that bad. I promise you will like it”, she said, but Margaret didn’t want to go in there. God, she hated that, those girls having to strip in front of horrible, creepy guys. It was not sexy or compelling, and she hated it. She wouldn’t contribute to that. No way.

“We’re leaving. I’m sorry, I’m not doing this. I am _not_ like my father. Let’s leave. Now.”, she demanded. But Ruby wanted to smoke a cigarette, and she had to comply. That’s when she saw a familiar girl. The girl with the glasses. She was smoking outside of the local, wearing a fur coat and high heels. Her hair was loose, as straight as the pavement, as black as the night. She was wearing heavy makeup and her way of holding the cigarette made her look extra sexy. She didn’t look like she was searing many clothes underneath.

“Regina, your turn in five minutes!”, a girl screamed, and the brunette, now without her glasses on, threw away the cigarette and entered the local. Maybe now she had a reason to stay…

But she changed her mind. Because she wasn’t a predator, so she left. She went back to her loft, with her best friend next to her.

But that night, she dreamed of Regina.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not inspired. I have to be honest: I have many ideas, but they disappear the moment I grab my laptop. But I think I'm gonna write this story for myself, and if there is people out there that like it, then great. Now, about the POV, I am trying to use a mixture of third person and first person: this means that I will write in third person, but as if the narrator had a preference (let's call it that way) for the character in that scene; in order to make things clearer, I will highlight with bold letters the paragraphs where the "narrator" changes. I hope this makes things clearer and easier to read.

**_That_ morning**, the rain was behaving badly. What had started as a simple drizzle, had turned into a nasty storm. It wasn’t pretty, and as New Yorker, she felt disappointed at herself for being sorta scared of that storm. Ruby was pretty much the personification of the summer, with her bright red clothes and her eternal skorts. It was funny when she thought about it, how she and Maggie had become friend: she was a punk, a huge Nirvana fan, and Maggie was just a ballet preppy girl, with her bangs and her high buns. However, that friendship had lasted for ten years, and it was still as alive as the first day they met. But Ruby knew her best friend, her sister, was having a hard time lately. Because Ruby hadn’t had a hard time when she told her Granny about her bisexuality, but it was different for Margaret. Because Margaret was a catholic girl who happened to be a lesbian, and that wasn’t easy to say out loud. She had known that woman for such a long time, and she knew how Margaret’s father was, so she could understand how conflicted she was. And it was Saturday, so they should go and explore the city, but the rain was flooding the streets and Maggie was in a mood. She said she had too many assignments, but Ruby knew it was a lie. Something had changed when they went to that strip club. It had been a bad idea to go there, considering how much Maggie hated her father and everything related to it. It was like forcing her to become him.

“Hey, girl, whatcha doin?”, Ruby asked, but Margaret was just staring at her laptop. “Heeeeeeyyyyyy, Earth talking to miss Maggie!”, she said again. But there was no answer, and she was starting to worry. She decided to sit next to her and check what she was doing. All she found was tabs and tabs of social media research.

“I need to find the turtleneck girl. I need to apologize”, she said, and Ruby understood. They shared that horrible common thought: sapphics were predators, monsters. Maggie had told Ruby about how ugly she felt after what she did with that poor unknown girl, and she wanted to apologize, even if _that_ made her look like a stalker.

“Let it go, Mags. She’s your classmate, you can talk to her when you have French lessons together. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t really care”, she said, as a way of helping her friend feel less guilty of anything.

“It’s not just that, Rubes. I saw her yesterday, at the club”, she said, without looking at her tall friend.

“But… we didn’t enter the club…”

“Exactly. She was outside, smoking a cigarette, with high heels and a fur coat. It was her. I’m sure”.

“Maggie, no offense but, how can you know it was her? You’re a bit short sight, even if you don’t want to admit it”, Ruby said. It was so crazy. How could she be so sure that girl at the strip club was the same girl at school? It made no sense. That girl, according to her best friend, was young and short, with glasses and a curly hair. What Ruby saw in that door was a tall, over maked up young woman, with straight hair and a lip scar. Unlike her friend, she could see a rabbit at night from miles away of distance, and that girl looked sexy, not angelic.

“It was her; she had the lip scar. It had to be her. How many girls with lip scars you know?”, she asked, and Ruby had to think about it. If you saw it that way, it made sense: things like a scar or a mole can be so distinctive, that maybe Maggie wasn’t just obsessing over a random girl. Maybe, because that’s how the universe works, she had encountered that girl that same night. Maybe it was a sign. Whatever.

“Anyways, this isn’t healthy. You can’t obsess over some chick you met at college, stripper or not. You don’t even know her name, and yet, here you are, researching who she is”, Ruby tried to reason with her, but Margaret had an answer prepared.

“I do know her name. Her name is Regina, and I just wanna know who she is because Ruby, I know I sound insane, but I like her. And she has invaded my thoughts. And all I could think of yesterday was of her. I just wanna know who she is. I just… like her. She’s different, I can tell.”

But her speech didn’t sound okay, or normal. Margaret had this thing, this way of dealing with her problem by obsessing with something. It could be a hobby, a tv show, a girl she just met… And Ruby wanted her friend to find love, to find a girl that appreciated her, to have a family. But this wasn’t okay.

_**On** the other side of the town_, a blonde woman was struggling with her notes. She had thought that college was _not_ that hard, but she was wrong. She should have studied harder when she was in prison. However, she had chosen to do the bare minimum, especially considering how gloomy her situation was back then. Now, aged 27, she was starting to think about how worthy it was. She wished she was like Regina. When Emma met her, she thought the brunette was a stuck-up bitch, but after some days, she realized Regina was a survivor, just like her: an immigrant, a single mother, a worker, a woman. She was nice, clean, funny, interesting. And she didn’t judge her. She had helped her, and Henry couldn’t be lovelier. She was reluctant about sharing an apartment with a single mother and her child, but her days were less lonely ever since she had moved in with them. It was a beneficial agreement for both: Emma had a flat mate and Regina had to pay a cheaper rent. As an ex-convict and trans woman, Emma was always aware of who was around her, but Regina had as many secrets as she did, so there was no need to keep her guard up with her. It was nice, to be relaxed. However, as she saw the brunette gathering things in a hurry and telling Henry to rush, she couldn’t help but notice a folded sheet. She unfolded it, and it turned out to be a drawing of Regina, with the outfit she had worn the day before.

“Hey, nice drawing”, she said, getting the woman’s attention. The 24 years old woman looked at her.

“Yeah, crazy story. I’ll tell you all when I solve this problem. Talk to you later!”, she said as she grabbed her child and her folder and left the room.

Emma wanted to ask Regina so many things: where she was from, who was Henry’s father, where she had lived previously, what her job was, what she wanted for the future. But she wouldn’t want to answer the questions that Regina would ask in return: if she had gone through any bottom surgery, why she went to prison, what her deadname was, etc. At the end of the day, Emma respected privacy more than anything in the world, and she could do with a shallow friendship based on books recommendations and rock bands.

But she knew something was consuming her: she used to wake up at 7 a.m and, somedays, Emma had no idea when Regina had arrived at the apartment. She said that she was a waitress, but Emma knew she wasn’t. Maybe she was getting too attached to that girl. Maybe she was hoping to find a friend in a girl who didn’t want any new friendships.

But that night, when she arrived, Emma heard her. It was 4 a.m and both Emma and Kathryn were awake. And Regina couldn’t hide it. She was crying.

“Hey, sugar, what’s wrong?”, Kathryn said, getting closer to the brunette. Regina was not able to look at them in the eye, but she also couldn’t help it: she started crying as quietly as she could. Henry was asleep and it was too late to make any loud noise. But she was distraught, and she could not hide it.

“Come here, sit”, Emma instructed. She grabbed a glass of water for the poor woman, whose eyes were red already. The other blonde sat down, handing her a cigarette. Emma joined them, sitting on the arm of the sofa and giving Regina the glass of water.

“Robin came tonight. He said he needs me… that his son needs me. That he misses me”, she said. Kathryn hugged her, but Emma kept thinking about who that Robin was.

“Who’s Robin?”, she asked. To be fair, neither flatmate knew who that person was, but their priority was to comfort their friend.

“My ex. We broke up eight months ago. B-but his son is Henry’s best friend and he’s n-nice and… I don’t know, I thought I was over him… What’s happening to me?”, she questioned out loud, bursting into tears immediately. And their friends had to hug her. Because maybe they were already friends. Maybe that friendship that Emma was hoping had already happened. She hadn’t had many friends, but she could recognize them when she saw them. And that scene, right there, was what friends did.

But that night, while Regina danced, she only noticed her ex. She didn’t notice the soaking wet girl that had driven for miles just to check if it was her. The girl, with black hair and a floral dress, that had drawn her the day before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that in this chapter there wasn't much romantic content, but I also want to show the perspective and thought of their friends and family, so we can get the bigger picture and understand better their surroundings. I plan on writing larger chapters and deeper thought and scenes, but I would like to develop the characters and the plot a bit more. I also would love to hear your thought (maybe no one is reading this, but I have to try). I would like to know what you think of the story, what would you like to see, what you think it's interesting or important.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I know, I know this doesn't make much sense in comparation with how the show portrays them. But, honestly, fuck the show. If I want Snow to be a lesbian, she will be a lesbian. If I want Regina to be a dark academia stripper, she will be a dark academia stripper. Nothing matters anymore, I jsut want to write that especifically tpe of story that no one is gonna write. If you liked the story, if you have anything positive or negative to say about it, or any doubts... jsut leave a review! I will apreciate it, I promise.


End file.
